Debates most likely make debaters more entrenched in their own positions?

Every format of debate I'm aware of, more often than not, makes debaters more entrenched in their own positions.
To a generic debater, what could be more important than the commitment to one's own position? Ego, perhaps.

For me, a discussion or a debate is not where you find the new points of the thing you are talking about and learn to accept the reasons of the people you are discussing with. No, that **** is mythical, people all want you to listen to them and not vice versa. They all talk about fair, nice, civil knowledge builiding discussion, it's all lie and have never worked at all. For me, a debate or a discussion is where you bash your opponent head in the fence, on the wall and over the floor until they quit and claim the victory for yourself. The real winner is the last survivor.

Most politicians equate knowledge, expertise, and authority with their own power and believe that if they ever admit a mistake or that they were wrong it would weaken them. There was a famous example in the 1976 US presidential election. In a debate, President Gerald Ford was asked about Soviet domination in Eastern Europe to which he replied there was 'no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and under my watch there never will be.' He obviously meant Western Europe, but when given the opportunity to correct his mistake, he doubled down and continued to insist there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. After the debate and even the next day when the press asked him about it he continued to insist there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. He could not bring himself to admit that he'd made a mistake.

For me, a discussion or a debate is not where you find the new points of the thing you are talking about and learn to accept the reasons of the people you are discussing with. No, that **** is mythical, people all want you to listen to them and not vice versa. They all talk about fair, nice, civil knowledge builiding discussion, it's all lie and have never worked at all. For me, a debate or a discussion is where you bash your opponent head in the fence, on the wall and over the floor until they quit and claim the victory for yourself. The real winner is the last survivor.

Debate between individuals is not very likely to change the minds of the debators but the ideas of rhetoric, persuasion, argument, etc that was typically think of as debate was constructed with an informed audience in mind. Debate isn't meant to sway the participants but to illuminate the subject and present the merits of different views so the audience (typically the 'decision makers' of the community) would be aware of more than one view on a particular matter and both potential consequences and proposed actions could be evaluated transparently in front of the community.

However in law and science it is expected that a debator should be able to argue both sides of a subject not only to know their opponents thinking but to evaluate the strength and weaknesses of their subjectively chosen opinions.

In a debate (as opposed to a discussion) I'll generally try to keep to my position, even if it starts to become less tenable. I figure that if you start with a debate, you might as well take it through to it's logical conclusion. It's generally after a debate is over that I'll evaluate the arguments and how the debate went and then possibly change my position for future debates if my original position was demonstrated to be untenable.

Debate is like a sport, you don't go over to the other team just because your team is losing, you continue to give it your best, that's just good sportsmanship.

I agree it usually is that way but having worked a lot of years in sales, the most important thing is to agree with something. So often people don't especially on historum. They sometimes are in agreement in views and just mince details. To swing someone you have to concede some points.

On historum I can't really say people have bitter disagreements because they like fighting. Everyone wants to expound their own knowledge, we get a kick out of it. Along the way someone challenges us and is offended by our lack of knowledge. We're offended he challenged us and made us look stupid or DARES to think he knows more than us. So we attempt to disprove him to protect our own idea of historical understanding even if we know he's right.

The only way to "win" an argument on a site like this is to notice that there is no argument. So often people agree on the fundamental point and are just trying to make minor (and uncertain) corrections.

Every format of debate I'm aware of, more often than not, makes debaters more entrenched in their own positions.
To a generic debater, what could be more important than the commitment to one's own position? Ego, perhaps.

Any group of 10, 12, 24 people should/will have things the others will not know or think of.